1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to adapter wire harnesses for installing any non-original equipment manufacturer, or aftermarket, autosound component into different vehicles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Vehicle owners often seek to replace or upgrade the OEM audio system provided by a vehicle manufacturer with an aftermarket autosound component. The terms xe2x80x9cautosound componentxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cradioxe2x80x9d are used herein in their ordinary and broadest sense, and include AM/FM stereo radios, with built-in or head-end controls for tape cassette decks, CD players, DVD players, power amplifiers, cellular phones, security alarms, global positioning systems and any other electronic driver information, convenience or entertainment circuits found on automobiles and like vehicles. The term xe2x80x9cautosound componentxe2x80x9d also conventionally includes loudspeaker systems, power amplifiers auxiliary to the preamplifier or amplifier within a radio and any type of 12 volt electronic components used as part of an electronic driver information, convenience or entertainment system within a vehicle. The term xe2x80x9caftermarketxe2x80x9d includes any component that is non-original with respect to the OEM audio system, or which requires an adapter wire harness to be mated with an OEM wiring harness. An aftermarket installation invariably includes the problem that the OEM wiring harness connector found on the vehicle will not mate directly with the terminals on the new autosound component.
Adapter wire harnesses for installing aftermarket autosound components such as upgraded radios typically consist of two separate pieces. A radio-end connector is specific to mating with terminals on the back of the aftermarket autosound component, and has extending color-coded conductor wires. A vehicle harness-end connector is specific to mating with terminals on the OEM vehicle harness and has extending color-coded conductor wires. The installer chooses a radio-specific piece and a vehicle harness-specific piece and then solders or mechanically connects the free ends of each wire coming out from each connector. Hopefully, the wire color codes are compatible exactly between each piece, so that simply making all single, like-color wire end connections will create each required circuit connection. However, correct circuits cannot be assumed in every radio/vehicle application simply by matching wire colors, and the installer must check a schematic circuit diagram or other reference for the specific OEM wiring harness to be sure of making the proper connections.
One attempt to avoid the uncertainty involved in using such prior art two-piece harness pairs has been a series of one-piece adapter wire harnesses, specific to each radio/vehicle combination likely to be desired by a consumer. Examples of prior art two piece and one-piece adapter wire harnesses are those available from Metra Electronics Corporation, of Holly Hill, Florida, the assignee of the present application, under the respective trade designations, TurboWire(trademark) and Smart Cable(copyright).
SWADE (U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,799) describes a Y-shaped harness for interconnecting an OEM vehicle radio and an add-on, aftermarket autosound component. Each of the three connectors is specific to a particular set of autosound component terminals or a specific vehicle harness, and the inventory required to accommodate permutations or combinations of those three variables would be even more burdensome than the inventory required to accommodate two variables. Hence, while such an approach would eliminate the need to hardwire a new component, the harness itself is merely a variant upon the common one-piece wiring harness with two specific connectors, as described above.
PETER et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,107,696) describes a circuitry for voltage supplies to various automotive components, wherein a central control unit has various ports into which function modules can be inserted. Such a system merely illustrates the prior art approach of a common bus, with common interconnect housings, so that individual functions can communicate with a controlling device. By contrast, the present invention permits selective matching of a new autosound component with an existing vehicle harness, without requiring any external switching or like control circuitry.
KATAOKA et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 6,040,760) describes a system for selectively installing and addressing various automotive autosound components, wherein multiple operating switches are used to recognize and control the particular component inserted into the system. Such a system likewise merely illustrates the prior art approach of a common bus, with slots in a console having a common interface to accept insertion of one or more individual autosound components. The desired autosound functions then are selected with a controlling device.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a simplified inventory of adapter wire harness combinations stocked by distributors and end user installers of aftermarket autosound components. There are at least eleven popular radio-end terminal configurations currently in use, involving aftermarket autosound components manufactured under the trademarks Panasonic(copyright), Alpine(copyright), Sony(copyright), Pioneer(copyright), Aiwa(copyright), Audiovox(copyright), Blaupunkt(copyright), Clarion(copyright), Jensen(copyright), JVC(copyright) and Kenwood(copyright). There are at least thirteen popular OEM wiring harness terminal configurations, with seven particularly popular configurations being those found on vehicles from General-Motors Corporation, Ford Motor Corporation, Jeep(copyright) (DaimlerChrysler), Honda Mazda, Toyota, and Nissan. An installer would need an inventory of forty, one-piece wiring harness, in order to fit even any one of four popular radio types to any one of ten OEM vehicle wiring harness types. However, an installer would need an inventory of only fourteen wiring harness pieces according to the present invention, in order to fit any one of four radio types to any one of ten OEM vehicle wiring harness types. There also is a need in the art for a way to eliminate installation failures due to inadvertent wire color mismatching or poor contacts during the labor-intensive step of soldering or crimping the wire free ends, when using a two piece harness during installation of a new, aftermarket autosound component. Likewise, there is a need in the art for a way to avoid mistakes, when a single wire, or a pair of wires, must be interconnected in a non-standard fashion. For example, the blue wire from a Pioneer radio must be connected in parallel to both the blue and blue/white stripe wires on any vehicle harness, in order for that Pioneer radio to send a signal that will be able to actuate both a power antenna circuit and an amp-turn-on circuit in any vehicle supporting both functions. The present invention allows the wiring scheme of such a radio-end piece to be adjusted permanently at time of manufacture, so that the correct circuit connections will always be made through the intermediate interconnect, without need for an installer to do anything but mechanically interconnect two mating housings.
The present invention addresses the foregoing needs in the art by providing a new type of two piece harness system that significantly reduces inventory problems, eliminates failures due to incorrect wire matching and saves installation time. The improvement comprises an interchangeable two piece, releasable, intermediate interconnect system having a fixed wiring scheme. Any first housing of an interconnect is coupled by a first set of wires permanently to an autosound component-specific connector and any second housing of a mating interconnect is coupled by a second set of wires permanently to a vehicle wiring harness-specific connector.
In a first aspect of the present invention, the first piece includes a set of wires sufficient to accommodate all circuit functions supported by each terminal pin on a specific aftermarket autosound component. The second piece accommodates all circuit functions supported by any OEM radio model that originally could have been coupled to the vehicle wiring harness. By virtue of the fixed wiring scheme executed at an interconnect device, any combination of a supported aftermarket autosound component piece and a supported OEM vehicle wiring harness piece will result in a finished adapter wire harness that will execute all mutually compatible circuit functions specific to that combination, simply by making a mechanical interconnection. There is no need for any separate switching or control mechanism, since any wire that represents an unsupported circuit for a particular combination will remain insulated and inactive or discontinuous, within one of the housings of the interconnect. Hence, if a single radio output needs to connect with two circuit inputs on a vehicle harness, as described above for a Pioneer radio, the present invention allows the universal wiring scheme to be implemented permanently by a jumper, at the intermediate interconnect housing associated with the radio. Likewise, the ground for a Jeep vehicle harness is made through the chassis, so the black wire extending from the intermediate interconnect housing associated with the vehicle has a free end with a crimped flat connector, for connection by a screw to the vehicle chassis.
The intermediate interconnect device itself comprises a mating pair of molded nylon or like plastic nonconductive housings, into which a plurality of electrically conductive terminals are mounted. A terminal is mechanically and electrically joined to a conductive lead on a first end of each color-coded wire of first and second sets. Terminals connected to the first ends of the first set of wires are then inserted into a fixed pin location of a first interconnect housing. Terminals connected to the first ends of the second set of wires are then inserted into a fixed pin location of a second interconnect housing. The second ends of the first set of wires are connected to a set of terminals which are inserted into connectors that will mate with a specific autosound component. The second ends of the second set of wires are connected to a set of terminals which are inserted into connectors that will mate with a specific OEM wiring harness. The interconnect terminals are consistently arranged in a predetermined array or scheme in each interconnect housing, in order to be available to close each possible autosound circuit from a predetermined set of circuits. In the preferred embodiment, an 18 terminal interconnect housing is employed, and approximately 14 or 15 terminals, each connected to one wire lead, typically will be mounted in each housing piece used to form a pair. The respective housings and terminals in a pair are mateable with one another in only one orientation, so that the wiring scheme across the intermediate interconnect will be identical for any desired combination of a radio-specific piece and an vehicle harness-specific piece.
The mateable terminals in a pair of electrical interconnector housings are specifically designed to achieve substantial contact forces against one another in their fully mated condition. The proper insertion position is preferably indicated by a latch and ramp contact between the housings. In all preferred embodiments, the interconnector schematically illustrated is a dual row, 18 circuit, flat style 12 volt interconnect for wire of gauge 16AWG to-24AWG, with polarized housings made of nylon or other insulating materials. Such interconnectors are available as the Molex Mini-Fit(copyright) 5557 series, from Molex Incorporated, of Lisle, IL or as the AMP-DUAC (trademark) Series PA 66, from AMP division of TYCO International LTD, of Harrisburg, Pa. These interconnectors are known to provide good electrical performance and very low risk of separation of mated housings, in the high vibration environment of a vehicle underdash. Any other multiple circuit, secure form of releasable interconnect would be equally useful according to the principles of the present invention.
A better understanding of these and other objects, features, and advantages of the present invention may be had by reference to the drawings and to the accompanying description, in which there are illustrated and described different embodiments of the invention. All of the embodiments are considered exemplary of parts of a preferred system embodiment, because any one of the illustrated radio-end pieces will successfully mate with any one of the illustrated vehicle harness-end pieces.